


the ghosts that live between us

by xylodemon



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Cunnilingus, F/M, First Time, Wall Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-19
Updated: 2012-05-19
Packaged: 2017-11-05 15:05:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/407830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xylodemon/pseuds/xylodemon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She comes to the Wall with her hair cropped, a heavy cloak wrapped around the strong curves of her body, but there is no mistaking what she is, or who she is. Jon remembers her from the few occasions her family had visited Winterfell; she had been shorter then, still dressed in skirts, and she had smiled often, laughed with a sound as warm and bright as summer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the ghosts that live between us

**Author's Note:**

  * For [honey_wheeler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/honey_wheeler/gifts).



> For [honey_wheeler](http://archiveofourown.org/users/honey_wheeler/pseuds/honey_wheeler), who asked [](http://asoiafkinkmeme.livejournal.com/profile)[**asoiafkinkmeme**](http://asoiafkinkmeme.livejournal.com/) for a fic where Jon and Dacey meet up at the Wall.
> 
> Contains vague spoilers for _A Dance with Dragons_. Robb/Dacey implied.

She comes to the Wall with her hair cropped, a heavy cloak wrapped around the strong curves of her body, but there is no mistaking what she is, or who she is. Jon remembers her from the few occasions her family had visited Winterfell; she had been shorter then, still dressed in skirts, and she had smiled often, laughed with a sound as warm and bright as summer.

"The Night's Watch is no place for a lady," he tells her, the fire burning low in his chambers, casting strange shadows over her face.

"The women of Bear Island are not ladies." 

Her eyes are narrow and dark, her mouth twisted into a thin, tight line, and Jon realizes she hadn't come north to take the black, she had left the south to grieve. 

 

+

 

She beds down the same way Jon had when he first arrived, in one of the broken, unused towers, far away from the noise and dirt and smell of the common barracks. The men keep their distance, perhaps because they know Jon is watching, perhaps because she is Dacey Mormont. She is skilled with both a sword and an axe, had been one of the King in the North's personal guard; she is also the Old Bear's niece, and the name Mormont still holds weight at the Wall, with the men who hadn't turned craven at Craster's keep.

Nearly two moons pass before the worst almost happens, before she is cornered in the stables in the slow, quiet stretch after supper. He manages to get his hand around her throat, but she slides a short-knife between his ribs as easy as breathing; no one knows there has been any trouble at all until she drags his corpse across the yard by the wrist.

Jon doesn't remember his name, but he recognizes his face -- a squat, dirty raper from the Fingers he had never liked the look of.

"What would you have done with him?" she asks, wincing as the long scrape on her arm is tended. The nearest maester is at Eastwatch, but the septon at Castle Black knows enough to tie a decent bandage, when his hands aren't too unsteady from drink. "Would you have killed him if I hadn't?" 

"I'd have given him a choice," Jon says carefully, frowning at the bruise under her jaw, the exact size and shape of a thumb. "A castrated man will try no more rapes, but a dead man cannot guard the Wall."

Dacey's eyes narrow, and she shrugs off the septon's attentions with an irritated huff. "Are the wildlings that fearsome, that you must hoard every thief and poacher in the realm?" 

"Wildings die as easily as other men. The White Walkers do not."

"Others?" she asks slowly, her voice sharp with disbelief. "Crib tales."

"I thought the same thing," he admits, pushing his sleeve up enough to frame the burns on his arm, "until a dead man tried to kill me."

 

+

 

She sleeps in the sept for a few days, which eases Jon's mind slightly; he suspects the septon's faith has soured over the years, but he is quiet and inoffensive, the kind of drunk who is happiest when he is insensible.

Jon sends Satin to Shadow Tower, has Dacey brought to him on a cold, sharp morning, the sky heavy and dull, threatening another storm. She studies him for a moment, her hand white-knuckled around the pommel of her sword; her hair has grown out, brushing her chin as she moves, and her face is darker than the looming clouds.

"I understand you wish me as your steward." 

"Yes."

"Will it please you to put me in skirts, my lord?" Dacey demands, her voice cracking around the room like a whip. She scarcely resembles the Old Bear, but she is rather like him, shares his quick temper and prickly sense of pride. "Shall I draw your baths? Scrub your clothes? Cut your meat at every meal?" 

"I can cut my own meat," Jon snaps, heat flushing over his cheeks, burning along the line of his jaw. "It would please me to have you safe."

"I can protect myself."

"I do not doubt that," he says shortly, rising as a gust of wind batters open the door, slamming it closed with his foot. "The men trouble me. I -- I do not trust them. If you stick a knife in any who try to lay hands on you, there will be very few left to guard the Wall."

"Are the vows here taken so lightly?" she asks, perching on the edge of his writing desk, her arms folded across her chest. "I'd have thought my uncle would've held a stronger command."

Jon sighs under his breath, a slow ache twisting through his belly and chest. "Your uncle did the best he could with the tools he was given. Men once came to the Night's Watch to serve the realm; they come now because they are hungry, or to avoid an axe or a noose, and their vows are nothing more than a necessity."

"If you can spare a horse, I will leave at first light," she says quietly.

"No," he says, catching her arm as she turns for the door. "You needn't go."

Her smile is soft, almost sad. "If all you say is true, I will only cause problems if I don't."

"You are all I have left of Robb," Jon says, tugging lightly at her sleeve. "It would please me if you stayed."

 

+

 

"Tell me how it happened," Jon says, leaning back in his chair, the evening's greasy, tasteless stew sitting sourly in his belly. "How did Robb come to die?" 

Dacey is silent for a moment, frowning into her beer, long enough that Jon begins to regret his words, worries he has reopened a wound that has not yet had a chance to heal.

"It was treachery," she says finally, tucking her hair behind her ears. "The Freys -- they lured Robb to the Twins with the intent to dishonor his guest right. They conspired against him with the Lannisters and Roose Bolton."

"How did you escape them?" 

She offered him a tight, wry smile. "They underestimated me."

A storm rages outside, wind rattling angrily at the windows, and Jon shivers, pulls his cloak closed at the collar. Dacey starts to rise, but Jon waves her off, crouching at the hearth, grateful for the excuse to stretch his legs, to get his frozen blood moving again. 

"My father never trusted Roose Bolton," he says, his hands shaking as he lays more wood on the fire. 

"Nor did I," Dacey says, her mouth tight. The bitter edge to her voice scrapes over Jon's skin, feels like the hollow in his chest, the slow and constant ache Ygritte's death left behind. "Kings do not always listen, and your brother -- Robb wanted to believe the best of people."

"You loved him."

"I still do," she says quietly.

Jon studies her for a moment, watches the firelight soften her face and the shadows darken her hair. "Did he love you?" 

"I think he did, as much as he was able," she said, taking a long swallow of beer. "It was not easy for him, those last few moons, with the men pushing him one way and his mother pulling him another." She set her mug on the table, tapping her finger on the rim. "He loved you. His biggest regret was letting you leave Winterfell."

"If I'd known how things would end up, I wouldn't have come here," Jon admits, as shameful as it sounds. "I should have been with him."

"You would have died, the same as him."

"An honorable death."

"An honorable death is still a death," she says firmly, pouring fresh beer into his mug.

 

+

 

Jon does not mean to kiss her.

Morning dawns brutally cold, a false calm after the storm, the sky clear and the wind still but the air itself cutting deeper than a knife. The men are restless after so many days huddled in the barracks and trapped in the underground wormways, and by supper Jon's nerves are frayed, rubbed raw from the food and the cold, from Stannis' demands and Bowen Marsh's complaints, from the endless string of nuisances that have come through his door. Dacey is arguing with him about the accounts, her lips parting as she leans in to point at something in the ledgers, and Jon tips his face up, slides his hand into her hair and presses his mouth to hers.

"I'm sorry," he says softly, shame heating his face. Her hands are curled against his chest, and he frowns over her shoulder as he steps away. "I should not have done that."

"I did not fall into your brother's bed just because he was King," she says, her eyes narrowing slightly. "I will not fall into yours just because you are Lord Commander here."

He rubs his hand over his face, pours himself a cup of wine. "I can finish the accounts alone, if don't wish to stay."

"You cannot finish the accounts alone," she says, hooking her fingers in the laces of his jerkin. "The grumpkins have a better head for numbers than you." She slides her hand up to his throat, slowly traces her thumb along the line of his jaw. "I wasn't refusing you."

"Dacey, I am not--"

"I wasn't refusing you," she says again, leaning in close, her mouth brushing the shell of his ear. "I need you to know it's not because of who you are."

"Lord Commander, or Robb's brother?" 

"Both."

She curves her hand around the back of his neck, dragging him closer, kissing him much like Ygritte always had, fierce and bold and fearless, her tongue pushing into his mouth, curling hot and slick against his, her fingers knotting in his hair, tugging in a way that made a slow heat spark and twist in his belly. He slides his hands up to her waist, intent on moving away from her, but she sucks his tongue into her mouth, nips the soft swell of his lip just this side of too hard, and he sighs into it before he can stop himself, wrapping his arms around her, letting his cock rub against her hip. 

He fumbles with the front of her jerkin, growling as his fingers tangle with the laces, wanting to touch her breasts, see more of her skin, press his mouth to the careful dip at the hollow of her throat. She laughs against his neck, soft and warm and bright, setting her teeth to the hinge of his jaw; her breath catches when he runs his tongue over her nipple, and she digs her fingers into his arm, draws her hand down his chest, palms his cock through the front of his breeches.

Jon takes her up against the wall, her shoulder rubbing the fur covering the window, her leg hitching around his waist as he pushes inside her, her tongue in his mouth and her breeches still hanging from her foot. She makes a rough, needy sound low in her throat, her heel pressing into the back of his thigh hard enough to bruise; he thrusts into her too hard and too fast, unable to slow the desperate, restless snap of his hips, spends with his knees shaking and his eyes closed, with his open mouth against the soft skin between her breasts. 

He slides to his knees, running his hands up her thighs, stroking his thumbs into the creases of her hips as he pushes her open, leans in closer. He licks into her with slow curls of his tongue, stroking the tip over her nub as he slips his fingers inside her, pulling her leg over her shoulder, sliding his hand under her arse and holding her to his mouth. She smells like winter, sharp and perfect; he can taste himself there as well, something darker, slightly bitter, and he presses his face against her when her hips start to twist, drags his lips and tongue over her nub until she flutters and throbs around his fingers.

 

+

 

Dacey is competent and strong, brave and intelligent, has a laugh that can dull the ache in Jon's chest, a smile that can turn his vows into water, slipping hopelessly between his fingers.

Jon dishonors himself every day, climbing into her bed at night, kissing her when she brings his breakfast in the morning, sliding his hand over her hip when she stands beside his desk. He puts his mouth on her in the middle of the afternoon, nudging her back against the wall or pushing her down into chairs, lets her sneak her hand into his breeches when he's meant to be writing a letter or looking at the accounts or any of a hundred other, more tedious things. He had forgotten what it feels like to want someone this badly, to have someone want him; he cannot get enough of her, cannot stop touching her, brushing his fingers through her hair, slipping his hands inside her jerkin.

He watches her as she balances the ledgers, as she helps train the newest recruits in the yard, wonders why Robb hadn't married her, if he'd ever considered it, if he would've married her if he hadn't been promised to the Freys, if he hadn't bedded Jeyne Westerling in grief.

 

+

 

There are few secrets on the Wall. 

Jon keeps his distance from Dacey outside his chambers, speaks to her politely, tries not to let his gaze linger, but things are noticed all the same. Stannis favors Jon with long, pointed looks he knows should shame him, and the men grumble under their breath, call Dacey _Lady Snow_ when they don't think Jon can hear.

When the knives finally come out, Jon is not surprised, has always known the men could turn on him as easily as they had Mormont. They mutter about Stannis and Melisandre and the wildings and The Gift, but as blood stains Jon's hands, dripping onto the snow around his feet, he worries about Dacey, hopes they do not kill her as well. 

 

+

 

Jon opens his eyes in a strange place, sharp and livid pains searing through his chest.

"It's past time you came awake," Dacey says, perching on the edge of his bed.

Jon's mouth feels thick and sour and dry; he makes a rough, clacking sound in the back of his throat when he tries to speak, and Dacey slides her hand under his head, holdling a cup of water to his lips, laughing as half of it spills down his chin.

"W-where?" 

"We're in Mole Town. In the brothel," she says, her mouth twitching at the corners. "You were stabbed forty times, or close enough that it makes no matter. I was sure you would die -- you Starks are hard to kill."

Jon drinks a little more water, his hand shaking as he lifted the cup. "How?" 

She strokes her hand over his face, presses her thumb to his lips. "They underestimated me."

"Ghost?" 

"Off hunting. Pyp and Grenn had heard whispers that worried them -- they unchained him just before it happened." She frowns slightly, patting his thigh; her face looks thinner than Jon remembers, and she has heavy shadows under her eyes. "I should have realized. Grey Wind acted much the same at Edmure's wedding... snapping and snarling... I think he knew Robb would be betrayed. I think Ghost knew as well."

Jon closes his eyes for a moment, tries to breathe through the pain throbbing in his chest.

"Stannis has taken Winterfell," she continues, tilting her head. "He expects you to come claim it as soon as you are well enough to sit a horse."

"I can't--"

"The Night's Watch tossed you aside," Dacey says firmly, sliding her hand over his. "Your brother once told me there must always be a Stark at Winterfell."

"I'm not a Stark," Jon insists, his voice ragged and hoarse. "I refused Stannis' offer."

Dacey makes a short, irritated noise under her breath. "The Others take Stannis. Robb legitimized you before he died, Jon Stark."

"Winterfell," Jon murmurs, thinking of Robb as he had seen him last, his blue eyes sad as Jon had said goodbye, his auburn hair curling in the wind. He squeezes Dacey's hand, strokes his thumb over her knuckles. "Will you come with me?" 

She is silent for a moment, a strange look passing over her face; Jon worries he has said the wrong thing, that perhaps he has presumed too much, but then she smiles at him and presses his hand to her stomach.

"Yes."

Jon tries to sit up, groaning as the pain in his chest spreads into his legs and back; the room spins around him sharply, swimming in front of his eyes. "What -- you--"

" _We_. I did not do it alone."

"I -- we will need to marry."

"We have been married for months," she says, laughing as warm and bright as summer. "You've just been too foolish to realize it."


End file.
